coming up on r t ten years ago the u.s. invasion of iraq was just beginning countless lives lost and billions spent so was this war necessary our special guest today is former ohio congressman dennis q senates an outspoken critic of the war. and what is life like for those inside iraq r.t. has a correspondent inside the war torn country we'll have a report from the ground just ahead. and sent to jail for exposing a security flaw we'll tell you about a man who came across private info online and never use the information but he's heading to prison. it's wednesday march twentieth four pm here in washington d.c.

i'm liz wall and you're watching r t what began today in iraq where an al qaeda affiliate took credit for a series of bombings the blasts resulted in at least sixty dead on the ten year anniversary of the iraq war it's a war that killed nearly five thousand u.s. soldiers hundreds of thousands of iraqis and estimated to cost trillions of dollars the bush administration told the public iraq had weapons of mass destruction turns out that wasn't the case but from the beginning there were a few voices against the waging a war in iraq among them former congressman dennis q senate if you can recall he called for the impeachment of president george bush and dick cheney liars are weapons of mass destruction lies are also an impeachable offense this is in golf you don't get a do over the resolution articles or impeachment of george bush president of the united states. go to consent to chat us and sign the impeachment petition

for the former congressman joins us now in our studio as we reflect on the past decade much of his son it's great to have you here so you have consistently been a vocal critic of the iraq war and looking back on the past ten years what's going through your mind. more that would goes from my mind i can feel this in my heart you know i'm heartsick over. the loss of our troops over the debts of perhaps as many as a million innocent iraqis the destruction of that country the destruction of our own priorities here at home the rising debt borrowing money to wage a war the say it's been a nightmare and frankly those who made the decisions to take us there have not yet been held accountable and i want to bring this up yesterday i spoke to former alaska senator mike gravel and here's what he said well our entire institutions to media the congress the white house all failed the american people

now i know that you from the very beginning were outspoken about this war and i want to have should have there been more critical voices should have there been alarm bells going off whether or been whether it be from within the government or from members of the media but we knew and i say we myself and members of congress knew back in october of two thousand and two that the call for war was not fact based people the media knew that too but there was everyone got pulled into this tremendous movement towards war. make no mistake about it the president and members of his administration involved in a decision making have the first responsibility here members of congress and top positions have responsibility as well but we have to move. to a place in america where we reconcile the events of the last ten years against the

fact that it was not based on truth that's horrendous when you think about the consequences lying to take the country to war it is mind boggling when you think of the impact this lives had you say that many people didn't know about the true officer yet we didn't hear much warning we didn't see as much resistance how do you think that's able to happen well my experience in congress was that the minute that you start to beat the drums for war war has kind of a hypnotic magnetic effect that maybe it excites the lower limbic system or something but people just get drawn into it they don't they don't think anymore it becomes an emotional thing and people stop thinking and as a result we sent our troops over there as a result we ended up with thousands of them dying many of them coming back those who survived with p.t.s.d. . and the iraq we laid iraq waste to waste we you know all

these people killed and injured the country destroyed oil being one of the underlying things that was involved here. those who made the decision that took us there again they have to be held accountable which is why i suggested a whole new process that could bring people forward in the public get them to confess to their misdeeds and give our country a chance to lift this scourge of a war based on live from our conscience do you think that whatever really happened it needs to america can't live a lie. that's the truth such as for then we must stand upon the truth to free ourselves from the lies that took us into the iraq war and the only way you can do that is sue a public process where those who made the decisions the president the vice president secretary of state the secretary of defense and all the people involved in those decisions are brought forward where they are subject to public question and where there's consequences if they if they lie but we need to leave we need to

move past iraq but we can't do it as long as we're fix there almost in a number like a specimen in time and space because of lies and the lies are are devastating to our country because there's so many americans who have no idea that we did not have to attack iraq and you just mentioned oil a moment ago and there are many people that believe that we went to iraq for oil bush wanted to bring fear free markets to iraq and that meant getting rid of these state owned operations but want to bring up these figures. has to do with china and it turns out that chinese control of iraqi oil production today fifty per cent and at by two thousand and thirty five it's expected to be eighty per cent so what's surprising is that we're not getting much oil the chinese are the ones with the big oil companies there why is that well first of all. china was able to get that oil

without ever understand a single soldier. they capitalized on america's. miscalculation. whether or not the thought was that the new government would just cave in to the u.s. . there was clearly a calculation that our movement over there was going to benefit our access to oil and cheap oil i might add. more is a tragedy and we we have to deal with it is not based on the decisions that china made you know it's interesting about that we borrowed money from china to prosecute that war to think about this thing is is so is such a compounded tragedy in so many levels that we borrowed money from china and we were such so in debt in china. their economy is growing and ours is tanking and the

war is one of the reasons you know the there's a line in our in our christian bible that says that which is crooked cannot be made straight everything about the iraq war is crooked and it cannot be made straight until we have a process of truth and reconciliation here in the united states much the same way that south africa had to free itself of the lies that brought it to apartheid and a subjugation of a whole group of people and you have also been very outspoken against some of the tactics that have been used in this war among them the use of torture and rendition right now guantanamo bagot there's a fake hunger strike that's going on among the detainees there do you still believe that that they should be shut down such as president obama promised so absolutely it's extra constitutional. one of the problems that came pursuant to the war is that some of the most cherished constitutional protections that that involve everyone who the united states comes into contact with basically

set aside suddenly you could put people in secret prisons or you could imprison them without attorneys or you could subject them to torture and it was beyond the reach of any civil authority here. and that set the stage for drone policies which are used can be used to attack american citizens abroad we have departed from our constitutional tradition and any time you do that you're looking for a real trouble now congress we don't have that much time but i do want to ask you because there was a press conference today between the president and benjamin netanyahu and do you fear that the u.s. is moving closer to war with iran given x. iraq. no i don't think we're headed towards a war with iran. iran has the ability to defend itself and there would be a catastrophe if there was

a nuclear strike on iran because of the effect of the fallout across the sub continent but there would also be a catastrophe because iran has an ability to retaliate and a retaliation would be against israel. we have to recognize that we're in a new era which requires us to settle our differences without killing each other and without threatening mass destruction against one nation against another and so we have to use diplomacy with iran we have to we have to build a relationship there and asked me based on trust you know we can do this communicate frequently and we haven't done that yet but we need to see sinister really great to have you on today unfortunately we are at a time but that was a former congress ohio congressman dennis kucinich. well no one really knows the reality of war more than the men and women who served overseas nearly five thousand u.s. soldiers died and thousands more injured members of the military know what it's like to be on the front lines and lose friends in combat one of them is directing his anger right at president bush and dick cheney the man you see there thomas young

was paralyzed in satyrs city in two thousand and four he's dying and what he believes to be his final days he has written a letter a letter to george bush and dick cheney he says it's on behalf of the thousands still living in pain and grief here is part of his letter to the former leaders he says quote on every level moral strategic military and economic iraq was a failure and it was you mr bush and mr cheney who started this war and it was you who should pay the consequences as the ten year anniversary of the iraq war passes to remember the ultimate price the country has paid throughout the conflict. meanwhile violence still grips iraq today islamist extremists took responsibility for a slew of bombings resulting in over sixty deaths it's a deadly reminder that the country remains unstable after ten years of war hard to correspondent is. loosely caffein up is on the ground in iraq to bring us this

report. at this hour american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. this was the freedom they brought shock and bombs over baghdad what the pentagon billed as a quick war to liberate iraq turned into a prolonged nightmare. ten years of bloodshed war of occupation and deadly sectarian strife drained by afghanistan exhausted by iraq for washington the battle is over after a decade of war that's cost us thousands of gods and over a trillion dollars. nation we need to build is our way but what if the nation they left behind. know we're not. biggest regret the iraqi people who are the infrastructure is devastated the country is ruined. these

graves are a visual reminder of a decade of human strife almost everyone in this country has lost somebody whom they love no one knows exactly how many iraqis have been killed since the invasion and estimates range from more than one hundred fifty thousand to over one million for years the u.s. claims not to keep body counts but how do you mohamed has kept count his four sons and only grandchild were killed in a suicide blast. how am i doing i raised my sons and saw them get mahdi's and send them to universities i watched them die you asked me if it's better or worse now compared to ten years ago i still have my sons ten years ago so i think the answer is old and it's like others have seen their dreams of a brighter future shattered by years of violence. i was top of my class but when circumstances became very bad after the occupation i feel that something was broken

inside of me. my ambition and everything i used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer but conditions prevented me from continuing my studies but an education is no guarantee of work less than forty percent of iraqi adults have a job and a quarter of families live below the world bank's poverty line statistics that haven't improved much since the days of crushing u.n. sanctions in the one nine hundred ninety s. elections may have brought democracy to iraq but critics say the government is rife with corruption and infighting. despite the various that's occurred in the time of the former regime it is not comparable to the number of fairly is by the politicians and the current government. and more troubling perhaps are the lingering divisions. this occupation separated us and to try to replace the political structure with a tribal one which aggravated the political conflicts i see no good in this kind of regime. today iraq is facing

a new political crisis there's tension on the ground between the sunni provinces and the shia led government as well as between baghdad and the kurdish north i think if these issues are not resolve it can lead to more significant problems including conflict which can lead to i think the breakup of iraq and destabilization. and an upsurge in violence is sparking fears of a return to sectarian strife who figures show that death rates have actually risen since the last american soldier left iraqi soil how long will iraq remain like this every day there are explosions every day there is killing every day there is terrorism. explosion after explosion iraqis have asked themselves that same question for most of the last ten years to see counselor of r.t. iraq. the tenth anniversary of the war in iraq has many wondering if the country is better off today than it was

a decade ago can you walk down the street of iraq and feel safe or is there the threat of a car bomb exploding around you our teams or national correspondent lisa casanova's on the ground in erbil iraq to tell us what she's seeing hi lucy so can you give us a said of what life is like on a day to day basis in iraq. well one of the things that strikes you first driving through iraq we spent most of the day in the northern city of kirkuk which was one of the most dangerous places at the height of the six area and strife there is the checkpoint massive checkpoints almost everywhere you go iraqis aren't too free to move around because of the security situation which can soon used to be quite on say for them as we were driving through kirkuk one thing that i noticed though was you know daily life does continue despite the levels of violence we saw children out on the streets people out in cafes we actually arrived to cook just as the news of that massive series of car explosions and shootings and

bombings came out that took place in baghdad people were aware of that and yet they didn't really let that stop them from carrying out their daily life at the same time what we heard from iraq after rocky is that their daily routine is determined by fear of the security situation they can't necessarily go to certain markets because those might be considered unsafe neighborhoods have become much more fractured whereas at one point iraq used to live together in a more harmony now the sectarian divisions the ethnic divisions the religious divisions are much more prominent people are much more suspicious of their neighbors which is something that didn't used to be the case at least that is what we heard from the iraqis that we spoke to there and of course the infamous blast walls of something that definitely strikes you as you're driving and walking through parts of those cities so i think visually you do sort of get a sense. but this is a country that still hasn't quite recovered from war but at the same time considering that iraqis have been in a state of war for almost

a decade in some sad ways the instability has become a part of normal daily life after the series of bombings that happened just yesterday over sixty people dead loosely is there a renewed sense of fear there in iraq or are people just used to it at this point. i think of both i think unfortunately people have grown used to it it's certainly a sense of fear for foreigners entering the country but you know one one of one of the that was the things that that that you sort of hear constantly is that people do feel that life perhaps has improved for some but most feel like their lives are defined again by the security and stability it's quite mixed the almost don't know how to get your mind around the fact that you know these car bombs are going off in fact actually when we were incurred kook we heard from the local officials there that there was two explosions small explosions that took place there but yet what are people supposed to do they have to somehow continue with their life and so they

do but at their peril right now are iraqis treating foreigners americans in particular. it kind of barry is on where you are for instance where in the air bill right now it's an area in the semi autonomous region of kurdistan which is probably the only place in iraq that has really benefited and improved and seen conditions drastically change for the better since the war however across most of the country there's a lot of suspicion of foreigners it's not that iraq is don't necessarily like americans most iraqis probably have no problems with westerners as people but considering the devastating impact of the war that had been launched by the u.s. in association with coalition partners there's a lot of suspicion about what westerners are doing there certain neighborhoods that you walk into it. really not ok to you know walk in with your american gear and try to not blend in with the people because you'll instantly be noticed as

a foreigner but you know the sad thing is that it's not just about the foreigners i think there's a growing sense of suspicion among the neighbors and that's really one of the things the tragic things the legacy is i suppose of this decade of war occupation and sectarian strife and billions of dollars have gone towards rebuilding iraq and we know now following a report that a lot of that money was wasted and that a lot of these projects were abandoned so i mean being there on the ground you get a sense that a lot of construction and rebuilding is taking place or do you see a lot of bombed out buildings in ruins. here in iraqi kurdistan in fact the opposite is happening this is again a prosperous region there is construction but that's because there's a massive oil boom in the oil wealth of fuels. immensely popular and wonderful economic surge but across most of the countries that's a drastic difference here because just forty five minutes away and it is

a completely different scenario there's a lot of poverty that continues to plague the country there's a lot of for instance problems with the infrastructure of drinking clean drinking water isn't necessarily available power outages continue to plague the capital of baghdad as well as parts of the country we're pretty lucky here in our bill but that's not the case for most iraqis and that again is another tragic leftover legacy of the war losing thanks so much for shedding some light on what iraq is like on the ground today that was ours he answered international correspondent who's the captain of on the ground in erbil iraq. well as you heard earlier in the show critics say the mainstream media played a strong role in the united states decision to invade iraq reporting consistently that the middle eastern country had weapons of mass destruction. well did a large media outlets learn from this mistake the pew research center's state on the news media report has some alarming findings that show the media has grown even

more opinionated since that take imus and b c and now we're gaining in popularity with its liberal spin found that imus n.b.c. broadcast opinion a whopping eighty five percent of the time but if you watch imus n.b.c. that should come as no surprise we were one thing from the last four years and the republicans will stand on your neck and then stab you in the. coming collapse if we don't take care of. we're going to deal with all that it's not is this is a really true i wish it were a long way off you know when you say so you know if we're talking about climate change. the art of my god or the implication is somehow that i would approve of any racism or discrimination and i don't in any form or fashion but isn't being in favor of civil rights but against the civil rights act a little like saying you're against high cholesterol you're going to be. by raising the specter of americans sitting in cafes being struck down by u.s.

drones and most people are not concerned about that it seems crazy it seems fringe . so perhaps the takeaway is it's on the audience to always question more or also called activists have found themselves in hot water lately we're going to highlight another case today hacker we've also known as andrew arnheim or was convicted in november of violating the computer fraud and abuse act monday he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison are numerous crime collecting more than one hundred thousand e-mails of i pad users thanks to a security loophole and eighteen to his website but he never sold or otherwise profited off the e-mails instead exposing the security issue to a t. and t. now arnheim or its fate is raising concerns that any form of security research sites could result in prosecutions our web producer andrew blake was at the sentencing and joins us now to tell us all about it hi there andrew here so can you

explain the arnheim or is crime in layman's terms you know if you mean if you want to call it a crime i mean the federal government called it a crime is a poem is called a crime but you have sort of a huge legion of supporters now the electronic frontier foundation that you have that is actually taking out his appeal to show just how significant this case is and how much of a stretch it might be as far as what the d.j. is actually doing but to back up what our own home or actually did was back in two thousand and ten when the i pads came out and every upper middle class white person america ran out to the apple store to go buy one eight hundred eighty and apple didn't really know what the hell they were doing so he found out that there was a security flaw to use websites and what he found out was pretty much information about every single i pad when i say information i mean the e-mail address registered that i pad and nothing else no names no passwords no home addresses no phone numbers no security numbers none of that are never found out that the e-mail addresses of everybody had user was sitting unprotected on the internet not behind the password not behind a firewall wasn't encrypted or anything he found them and he let people know he

went on the record to say that he didn't want to use this for money you don't want . to really do anything with this other than just say hey look i'm a security researcher in this is what i found care too much for that though and the federal government has been kind of following this guy for a while he says like a known reputation on the internet of being kind of a jerk and so they came after him and he was convicted back in november of last year sentenced on monday to forty one months in prison and be three years and five months for finding information on a website that the owner of the website didn't want him to fight so to be clear he didn't do anything bad with that information with those e-mail addresses not none of the holders of those e-mail address and suffered any kind of you know enough and the security flaw was actually patched up before the whole story started despicable and you know one one crazy thing here is so he's been a prosecutor in the computer fraud and abuse act or prosecuted computer fraud abuse act the same kind of landmark legislation to see if that was used to go against

aaron swartz that's used to go against your me him into every one tied to another and any sort of computer crime falls under the sea of eight and what they said on him or did was that he accessed a protected computer without authorization now when he access to protected computer he just went on to a website and he found this information just sitting there and you know he said a few months ago before he was actually sentence you said no one asked permission from google before they google you don't you don't call up silicon valley and say hi i'm looking for a hamster dance because that's a really good website and i still go to that all the time so you violated a law that's just really isn't a defined in for doing that he's now going to spend going to get out of prison when he's thirty now indices you screwed because the government didn't like him and these antiquated laws are exactly that now we have about a minute left i want to ask you and i know that computer security community that that community is concerned about this prosecution why are they concerned about this. given our time or sentencing that he's doing three and

a half years for finding information that's just sitting on a website. anyone can go to jail for using puter exactly he said there's no reason there's really not a big difference between going to google or stumbling on someone's personal blog without asking permission is there is just fine this information that's just sitting there are brown who used to be aligned with the group anonymous to some sort of degree there is three federal indictments have been handed down to him during the last seven months and one of those he could face over a decade in prison for sharing a link on a website literally sharing a link and arnheim are told me he said i and all internet users have a right to share links and he is the first person with a real c.f.a. case who hasn't killed himself yet so if you saw how significant this really is very interesting andrew thanks for telling us all about this case that was our to your web producer andrew blake and we are going to leave it off there but for more on the stories we covered check out our you tube channel at youtube dot com slash r t america our web site r t v dot com slash usa and follow me on twitter out as well

if you're right back here and have our. technology innovation. developments around. i am mission free education free transport charges free. range mentioned free kicks risk free fas to tide freak and download free blood cancer flooding video for your media projects and free media and on the r.t. dot com you can. actually hear image of iraq after invasion. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the road full of dangerous.

clear evidence from north to south. the root of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace feels like god taxi on our t.v. .